Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed holding "direct talks" with Ukraine on Thursday in Istanbul, as European leaders and the United States attempt to put pressure on Moscow to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in order to bring an end to the three-year conflict.
"We would like to start immediately, already next Thursday, May 15, in Istanbul, where they were held before and where they were interrupted," Putin said in a rare late-night televised address. He emphasised the talks should be held "without any preconditions."
"We are set on serious negotiations with Ukraine," Putin said, adding they are intended to "eliminate the root causes of the conflict" and "reach the establishment of a long-term, durable peace."
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The proposal came just hours after the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Poland told Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire starting on Monday or face possible "massive sanctions," according to French President Emmanuel Macron, on a highly symbolic visit to Kyiv.
The demand comes with the backing of the White House after a joint phone call with US President Donald Trump, the Europeans said.
Shortly after the leaders called for a ceasefire, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is "resistant to any kind of pressure".
"Europe is actually confronting us very openly," Peskov said, adding that Putin supports the idea of a ceasefire "in general", but "there are lots of questions" about the recent proposal that still need answering. He did not expand on what these questions are.
Putin said on Sunday he would speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about holding talks with Kyiv.
For two months now, Ukraine has said it wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire – a position promoted by Kyiv's key European allies, and also by Trump.
Russia has so far refused to commit, saying it supports the idea of a 30-day ceasefire in principle, but insists there are what it calls "nuances" that need addressing first.
On Sunday, Putin denied that Moscow has refused dialogue with Kyiv and said the "decision now lies with the Ukrainian authorities."
"We do not exclude that during these talks there will be a possibility to arrange some kind of new truce, a new ceasefire," he said.
He called the proposed talks "a first step to a long-lasting stable peace but not a prologue to the continuation of an armed conflict after re-armament and re-equipping of Ukrainian armed forces and feverish digging of trenches in new strongholds."
Putin has often spoken about the need to address what he calls "root causes" – which are taken to mean, among others, the eastward expansion of NATO.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump wrote that "if the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions," adding to a sense he is growing frustrated with Russian stalling.
Peskov told CNN Saturday that Russia is "very grateful" for Washington's mediation efforts, but added that "at the same time, it's quite useless to try to press on us."
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